No Picnic on Mount Kenya Quotes

“At such moments it was the thought of the security offered by a regular even though an unpleasant life, the spirit which dooms the canary bird to its caged existence, a natural tendency to follow the line of least resistance, that predominated. On the other hand, standing in the ranks at morning roll call and seeing Batian beckoning me with its shimmering glaciers, I sometimes felt like running away on the spot, to seek and to meet adventure halfway. We poor mortals are made like this, a mixture of contrasts, shade and light, fears and exaltations.”
― Felice Benuzzi, No Picnic on Mount Kenya: The Story of Three POWs' Escape to Adventure

“To remember is far worse than to forget. This is not a discovery of mine. It was an old truth in the times of the Greek statesman Themistocles. Once he was approached—so the story goes—by a schoolmaster who asked him for a reward because he had thought out a system of teaching that greatly improved the memory of his pupils. Themistocles answered: “I shall give you a reward if you invent a method of enabling mankind to learn how to forget, not how to remember.”
― Felice Benuzzi, No Picnic on Mount Kenya: The Story of Three POWs' Escape to Adventure